Knitting. Quilting. Sewing. Motherhood. Cleaning. Just kidding about the cleaning.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Barn Raising Do-Over

Thanks, you guys, for all of your sweet comments on my Olympics sweater! You guys are awesome.

So, the last time I showed you some Barn Raising progress, I declared that the next time I mentioned the blanket, it would be DONE! (I used all caps and exclamation points.) Apparently, I lied, because here it is again, and it is definitely not "DONE". What happened was this....the blanket was another one of those projects that I was desperately trying to get done before the Madison Knit-In. I wanted to hang it in the booth. But.....sewing up those seams takes a lot of time. A. Lot. Of. Time. I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take. (I am aware, there is a constant time management theme going on on this blog. Mirroring my life.) I discovered that this is no "sew it together in one evening in front of the tv" kind of project. First, it took multiple hours to sew the squares into strips, then it took about an hour each, to sew one strip to another.

I was on schedule early in the week before the Knit-In, and I sewed the last seam together at knitting guild Wednesday night, and in a ta-da moment, spread the finished blanket out on the table for some ooh-and-ahh time. Yes, my friends did their dutiful oohing and ahhing. I didn't say anything at the time, but I was not completely happy with it. I brought it home and laid it out again. It just didn't look as pretty as I had imagined it would.

Then I figured it out. I noticed a square smack in the middle that I knew was not supposed to be there. It was my least favorite square, and I remembered that I had put it over on the edge. Somehow, I had sewn them together out of sequence. A week before, I had spent a long time laying out the squares and determining the arrangement, and then I had made a mistake in sewing them together and gotten them out of order.

Luckily for me and my blanket, I am a big geek and I document the heck out of my knitting. I referred back to one of the layout photos and figured out that I had only mismatched one strip. Only one seam to rip out and re-do. That wasn't as bad as I had imagined the reconstruction would be.

As you can see from my diagram above, the seam between columns 4 and 5 needs to come out and the right section needs to be turned 180 degrees and re-sewn on the left.

Then ends woven in (a lot of them!) and some kind of crocheted edging. Then it will be really-truly-finally-done, DONE.

p.s. Wrongly-sewn together notwithstanding, I still took it to Madison and displayed it in the booth.

It is fantastic! I think that you need a "quilt in" where you invite your friends to help "quilt" (finish the "quilt") Besides, it seems like it was great fun! (I have only basted in a group, and it was fun) The more the merrier...came from here - probably! Just a thought in from a 1st quilter and now quilter/knitter. Hugs and Congrats!CintiSue